Piano harmonics

A piano harmonic is a flageolet ideally with no more than one clearly audible pitch. It is possible to prepare an object to get a rather clear harmonic, but this will fall into the 'Prepared piano' category.

Many of the nodes on the strings produce microtonal harmonics, and among the lower harmonics, the 7th, 11th and 13th are the ones deviating the most from the 12-TET.

The number and location of the harmonic node is sometimes specified as a fraction.
For example, ‘9/2’ means the second node of the ninth harmonic.

Marking nodes on the steel strings, can be done with a thin and tiny lump of tack-it without affecting the sound.
For the bass strings, I recommend marking with a piece of woolen yarn. From my experience, using different colours for different harmonic numbers or for different pitch names, may be very convenient when there are many nodes to mark.

Examples of works including this technique:

• Martin Rane Bauck: tostados en córdoba en medio de la noche
• Øyvind Mæland: Boiling Web
• Eivind Buene: Three Studies for Microtonal Piano